Denver Nuggets: When Will Danilo Gallinari return?
The Denver Nuggets have yet to announce a timetable for the return of small forward Danilo Gallinari. The former Italian League MVP hurt his ACL on April 5th, which abruptly ended arguably his best statistical year in the NBA. Gallinari was averaging a career high 16.2 points per game before partially tearing his ACL.
| Season | Age | Tm | G | GS | MP | FG% | 3P% | FT% | ORB | DRB | TRB | AST | STL | BLK | TOV | PF | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008-09 | 20 | NYK | 28 | 2 | 14.7 | .448 | .444 | .963 | 0.5 | 1.5 | 2.0 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.1 | 0.5 | 1.7 | 6.1 |
| 2009-10 | 21 | NYK | 81 | 74 | 33.9 | .423 | .381 | .818 | 0.8 | 4.1 | 4.9 | 1.7 | 0.9 | 0.7 | 1.4 | 2.4 | 15.1 |
| 2010-11 | 22 | TOT | 62 | 60 | 33.9 | .414 | .352 | .862 | 1.0 | 4.0 | 4.9 | 1.7 | 0.8 | 0.4 | 1.3 | 2.3 | 15.6 |
| 2010-11 | 22 | NYK | 48 | 48 | 34.8 | .415 | .347 | .893 | 1.0 | 3.8 | 4.8 | 1.7 | 0.8 | 0.4 | 1.2 | 2.4 | 15.9 |
| 2010-11 | 22 | DEN | 14 | 12 | 30.9 | .412 | .370 | .772 | 0.8 | 4.6 | 5.4 | 1.6 | 0.9 | 0.6 | 1.8 | 1.9 | 14.7 |
| 2011-12 | 23 | DEN | 43 | 40 | 31.4 | .414 | .328 | .871 | 0.7 | 4.0 | 4.7 | 2.7 | 1.0 | 0.5 | 1.6 | 2.0 | 14.6 |
| 2012-13 | 24 | DEN | 71 | 71 | 32.5 | .418 | .373 | .822 | 0.9 | 4.3 | 5.2 | 2.5 | 0.9 | 0.5 | 1.6 | 1.8 | 16.2 |
| Career | 285 | 247 | 31.3 | .419 | .369 | .844 | 0.8 | 3.8 | 4.7 | 1.9 | 0.9 | 0.5 | 1.4 | 2.1 | 14.5 |
Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 9/24/2013.
In June, Gallinari had arthroscopic knee surgery to repair his partially torn ligament. The surgery was done in his homeland of Italy. After the surgery, Gallinari announced that he will miss half of the 2013-2014 season. Recently in a Facebook post, Gallinari said that the recovery timetable will be “completely different” than what he had originally announced.
With a brand new coaching staff in place, Brian Shaw and company would like to have the 25 year old back sooner rather than later. With the loss of Andre Iguodala to the Golden State Warriors, the Nuggets might have trouble finding offense in Gallinari’s absence. Not only was Gallinari having a career year scoring the ball, the Italian was also playing his most efficient basketball to date. His 16.7 PER marked a career high.
Take a look at what Gallinari can bring:
Additionally, sabermateric stats show that he improved on the defense end as well. Personally I don’t like using steals and blocks to measure defense ability. The stat that I like is basketball references’s defensive wins shared (DWS). Gallinari’s DWS was at a career high 2.0 before the ACL injury-double his total from the previous year.
Gallinari’s agent, Lee Melchionni, told the Denver post “We don’t have a set date for when Danilo is ready to return. When he gets cleared by doctors, I think we will cross that bridge when it comes, but we don’t have a specific date or month or timetable in our heads right now. It’s more just him being 100 percent healthy, ready to go and feeling comfortable going out there and getting back on the court.”
So, there is no time table set for Gallinari. Don’t expect him to play anytime soon. However, there is one thing we can expect: [Insert generic “Gallinari will return before Derrick Rose” joke here].